1940: John Nance Garner vs. Wendell Willkie

[Sir Mohamed]

If FDR retired in 1940 and VP John Nance Garner became the Dem nominee, how do you think the GE ends up? Wendell Willkie is still the R-nominee here. Does he win over a lot of Roosevelt voters, or is the GOP brand still too toxic for victory?

[President Johnson]

Doubtful Garner would have won the nomination. FDR would probably have made sure he doesn't and someone like Robert Jackson gets it. Garner didn't have much appeal outside the South and I guess a charismatic figure like Willkie would have beaten him.



✓ Businessman Wendell Willkie (R-NY)/Senator Charles N. McNary (R-OR): 345 EV. (52.01%)
Vice President John Nance Garner (D-TX)/Former Attorney General Robert H. Jackson (D-PA): 186 EV. (47.06%)

[OSR stands with Israel]

Doubtful Garner would have won the nomination. FDR would probably have made sure he doesn't and someone like Robert Jackson gets it. Garner didn't have much appeal outside the South and I guess a charismatic figure like Willkie would have beaten him.



✓ Businessman Wendell Willkie (R-NY)/Senator Charles N. McNary (R-OR): 345 EV. (52.01%)
Vice President John Nance Garner (D-TX)/Former Attorney General Robert H. Jackson (D-PA): 186 EV. (47.06%)

Yah I dont see Garner getting the nomination in 1940 as I think FDR would have pushed for Cordell Hull to get it and I do think Hull wins in 1940. I agree with this map as well

[Blow by blow, the passion dies]

I agree with Johnson. Garner was a conservative Democrat. Robert Jackson would probably win instead

[Alben Barkley]

Cordell Hull or maybe even James Farley gets the nomination and wins.

Willkie could beat Garner.

[Fuzzy Bear Stands With S019 And Israel]

Doubtful Garner would have won the nomination. FDR would probably have made sure he doesn't and someone like Robert Jackson gets it. Garner didn't have much appeal outside the South and I guess a charismatic figure like Willkie would have beaten him.



✓ Businessman Wendell Willkie (R-NY)/Senator Charles N. McNary (R-OR): 345 EV. (52.01%)
Vice President John Nance Garner (D-TX)/Former Attorney General Robert H. Jackson (D-PA): 186 EV. (47.06%)

Yah I dont see Garner getting the nomination in 1940 as I think FDR would have pushed for Cordell Hull to get it and I do think Hull wins in 1940. I agree with this map as well

In 1940, other than Garner, no Southerner had been on a national ticket since the Civil War other than Sen. Joseph Robinson (D-AR) who was picked to balance the ticket with Catholic Al Smith.  The idea that Garner or Hull would have been nominated for the Presidency was not likely.

Texas, while part of the Confederacy, was not always looked upon as a Southern state.  Some considered it a Western state.  Garner was from South Texas (Uvalde)l, but he would have needed a running mate that was SOLID with Organized Labor.  A running mate such as Sen. Scott Lucas (D-IL) would have been a possibility.  Were he not Catholic, the obvious pick would have been Sen. Robert F. Wagner (D-NY), but Wagner was old and, had he not have been Catholic, may have sought the Big Job for himself.

[Alben Barkley]

Doubtful Garner would have won the nomination. FDR would probably have made sure he doesn't and someone like Robert Jackson gets it. Garner didn't have much appeal outside the South and I guess a charismatic figure like Willkie would have beaten him.



✓ Businessman Wendell Willkie (R-NY)/Senator Charles N. McNary (R-OR): 345 EV. (52.01%)
Vice President John Nance Garner (D-TX)/Former Attorney General Robert H. Jackson (D-PA): 186 EV. (47.06%)

Yah I dont see Garner getting the nomination in 1940 as I think FDR would have pushed for Cordell Hull to get it and I do think Hull wins in 1940. I agree with this map as well

In 1940, other than Garner, no Southerner had been on a national ticket since the Civil War other than Sen. Joseph Robinson (D-AR) who was picked to balance the ticket with Catholic Al Smith.  The idea that Garner or Hull would have been nominated for the Presidency was not likely.

Texas, while part of the Confederacy, was not always looked upon as a Southern state.  Some considered it a Western state.  Garner was from South Texas (Uvalde)l, but he would have needed a running mate that was SOLID with Organized Labor.  A running mate such as Sen. Scott Lucas (D-IL) would have been a possibility.  Were he not Catholic, the obvious pick would have been Sen. Robert F. Wagner (D-NY), but Wagner was old and, had he not have been Catholic, may have sought the Big Job for himself.

Neither being Catholic nor being Southern (especially from an upper South state like TN, as Hull was, or a state like TX which straddled regions as you say like Garner was) would have been nearly as big an impediment to winning either the Democratic nomination or the presidency outright in 1940, post-New Deal realignment, as it was in 1928. You know, a year when Al Smith most certainly DID win the Democratic nomination decisively anyway, despite being a wet Catholic who infuriated the rural Southerners and whose nomination resulted in the KKK largely favoring the GOP that year. By 1940, when FDR had totally upended the politics of the nation and when the world was on the brink of war, waving the bloody shirt would no longer have been a serious or viable strategy for any Republican, let alone against a "Southern" Democrat like Hull who was from a state that nearly didn't secede at all, who was born years after the Civil War, and who had a long and illustrious record of staunch loyalty to the Union and no real pronounced Southern sympathies. Farley or others being Catholic wouldn't have stopped them from winning the nomination or the presidency either; no serious person believes Smith wouldn't have crushed Hoover in a rematch, even if his margins in the South weren't as overwhelming as FDR's were. No real reason to think a Catholic couldn't win by 1940 either. Again, FDR completely upended the politics of this country. It strikes me as totally bizarre and tone-deaf to pretend that if he just didn't run again in 1940, all the changes he made over the previous eight years would magically disappear and the nation would be exactly the same again politically as it was before. What???

[Adjective-Statement]

Garner was from South Texas (Uvalde)

Sadly relevant.

Cordell Hull is the most likely candidate in a two term Roosevelt scenario, because Roosevelt would do a lot to make sure a solid internationalist won. Garner would have serious problems unless he patched things up with New Dealer labor.